Denis Murphy Tile & Marble

My husband and I were referred to Mr. Murphy by an acquaintance who had used his services. Mr. Murphy first sent a sub-contractor to perform the ceiling repair. The contractor inspected the damage, found that it was not as serious as he had anticipated, and told me that the ceiling needed only to be patched. He left a message for Mr. Murphy to that effect and left for the day. However, when the workman returned, he told me that he was going to replace the whole ceiling. He said that if I intended to be in our house for more than five years, then we may as well replace it since the plaster was old. I was confused as the non-damaged portion of the kitchen ceiling appeared to be in very good condition. I asked my brother-in-law (who does contracting work and happened to be present that day), about this change in recommendation and he advised me to have only the damaged section of the ceiling repaired, which is what ultimately happened. Mr. Murphy and his crew showed up to do the tiling work. They removed our claw foot tub and toilet and were removing the vinyl tile when I had to leave for an appointment. When I returned they were in the middle of tiling the floor. I asked if the subfloor had been replaced. Mr. Murphy told me that, in his opinion, the sub-floor was actually in good shape and did not need to be removed. I was confused because more than five years ago, our home inspector told us that the subfloor would need to be replaced. Regardless, I assumed that he would at least be taking measures to remove the annoying squeaking sound produced by the sub-floor as we were very specific with Mr. Murphy that this was an area of concern for us. I observed Mr. Murphy doing the tiling work, and he appeared to be doing the tile and grout one section at a time, which I later learned from other tile experts is not the proper way to do the work. Mr. Murphy removed the tub and toilet, but not the sink or the radiator. At no time prior to his beginning the work did he tell us that we would need to have a plumber remove the bathroom fixtures prior to his tiling. Mr. Murphy did explain that he was unable to remove the sink due to the complexity of the plumbing and that he would have to come back when we had a plumber remove it. I left again on an errand and when I came back, Mr. Murphy was gone. He had left a message asking me not step on the tile until the next day when it was dry and to let him know when a plumber had removed the sink and he would be back to do the tile under the sink area. When a friend and I viewed the tile upstairs, we noticed that many of the grout lines between each of the tiles were uneven: some were wide and some were narrow. We were also able to see the outlines of the squares that the tile came in. I noticed that the grout tiles at the baseboards were also uneven. Some were thick, some were thin, due to missing pieces of tile, and there were even tiles that were cut unevenly thereby throwing off the lines. I sent an email to Mr. Murphy detailing my concern about the lines and the cuts in the tile. He replied he would fix it when he returned to do the area under the sink. Mr. Murphy returned to tile the sink area and attempted to fix some of the issues I pointed out. I told him I had to leave to pick up my son at school but I would be back in roughly 20 minutes. When I returned a half hour later, Mr. Murphy was gone. I looked at the bathroom again, and while there had been an attempt to address my concerns, most of the issues remained unresolved. I also found other issues based on Mr. Murphy's work. Specifically, there were missing tiles under one of the tub?s rear claw feet so it was resting on the subfloor and not on any tile like the other three. I was never told about it and when asked, I wasn't given a reason why this was done. There were also poorly set, non-flush tiles surrounding the tub pipes. They were covered by a steel ring but I could see that one of the steel rings wasn't flush either. I picked up the ring and noticed that two of the tiles were tilting upwards and not flush with the floor like the other surrounding tiles. This was very concerning as it is precisely this area where water flows to cause the leaks that damaged the kitchen ceiling in the first place. In addition, I noticed that the metal piece that attached the tub?s shower head had been broken off, which was not the case before Mr. Murphy began work. This damage was never disclosed to me. While we currently don't have a pedestal sink, I was clear with Mr. Murphy that it was our plan to have one eventually installed. In fact, my husband and I were planning to pick one out when he came back from his business trip. However, Mr. Murphy did not fully make the tile under the sink area flush to the wall, which means that when a pedestal sink is installed, there will be a glaring issue against the back wall and perhaps even near the piping. Finally, I was very disappointed to learn that Mr. Murphy had made no attempt to remove the annoying squeaking noise that pervaded the bathroom. This could have been rectified with the simple insertion of a few reinforcing nails and 10 minutes of work. It was the first thing my husband noticed when he returned to the house and entered the bathroom. I received an invoice from Mr. Murphy for full payment the next morning after he supposedly finished his work. I was surprised, so I emailed Mr. Murphy and explained that I would pay for the kitchen ceiling repair work and the removal of trash, but the issues with the tile work needed to be corrected before I could release payment for the complete job. I was most specific in mentioning the missing tile under the back claw foot. In return, I received a very angry email from Mr. Murphy accusing me of trying to cheat him out of money, that he fixed what I had asked for and that he would accept "no partial check" from me. He refused to fix the issues and threatened in later emails to bring back the trash that he removed from the house. I was still home alone with my special needs son. I felt that Mr. Murphy was hostile, threatening and unreasonable and I no longer wanted him to enter my home or otherwise be on my property. I emailed him back explaining that I was going to have other tile companies take a look at the job, and that my husband was going to fly back as soon as possible to view the work as well. If all agreed it was good tile work, that I would pay him. If not I would get an estimate on what it would cost to fix the things he refused to fix and then deduct that amount off the bill. I attempted several times to come to a reasonable agreement with Mr. Murphy, but he made it clear each time he would accept nothing less than full payment. He refused to even look at or explain the second round of fixes we requested (i.e., the lack of actual tile under the tub) and instead reacted in a threatening manner when we expressed concern about the job. Instead, he and his attorney had a lien placed on our home. We eventually settled with the gentlemen for $1,500 through a Massachusetts arbitration department. So we have spent $1,500 and must now buy new tile at the cost of $800 and spend $2,100 to have the work done *again*. We must also replace the damaged shower fixture which will cost over $500.00. So many legal and emotional issues could have been avoided if Mr. Murphy had simply done the work we asked him to do, and with a reasonable degree of professionalism. We are not perfectionists. We simply expect professional contractors to do professional work. You can bet we will be *far* more careful in the future about our choice of contractors.

Great final product. We are more than pleased and feel we had the work done for a very fair price.